Restoring Assassin's Creed?

 Fat Chance!

For a reason I cannot even formulate; apparently Assassin's Creed wants to go back to it's routes. Somewhat. Despite the consistency of Ubisoft in recent years, both in growth and in the games that they make benign carbon copies of one after the other; Ubisoft are going to rock the boat with their next AC game and I do not know why. Haven't their latest RPG outings made stupid amounts of money even as the average review grade have tended down? I'd have thought that was the perfect trajectory for Assassin's Creed's management because it just gives them an excuse to reap the same benefits whilst denying their employees of bonuses. But I guess one rogue soul in the developers room grew a consciousness because going forward Assassin's Creed is going to be publishing a 'back to basics' spin off title known, at least currently in the development stage because all these games go through a little rename before reveal, Assassin's Creed Mirage.

Such comes from recent leaks out of the Ubisoft development studios, and whilst I'm usually the first one to exercise that all-important grain of salt whenever it comes to discussing the validity of leaks like they're facts, (the GTA VI one about Bonnie and Clyde protagonists is total bunk, mark my words) when it comes to Ubisoft they are, and have always been, the leakiest of ships. There was a time when Bethesda were pretty bad for it, but the absolute lights-off development of Fallout 4 was a turning point for them; nobody knew that game was dropping before the tease livestream and then we all learnt it was due for later that same year! No, there hasn't been a single release in Ubisoft's past ten years that hasn't made headlines months before the reveal; to the point where I'm mostly confident that the Ubisoft teams leak them intentionally ahead of time to gauge public interest before they devote their full attention. It would make more sense than assuming they're just incapable of keeping a single secret ever.

So when I hear tell of an Assassin's Creed Game that is going to be set in the wide city streets of Baghdad; is going to try and recreate the massive crowd technology of Assassin's Creed Unity in order to achieve those streets and is aiming at a return to the stealth action the series was based on, I know that it's for sure what's happening. But then I have to really confront what is being said here and ask; do Ubisoft really have the ball like they think they do? I mean sure; stealth was a big part of old Assassin's Creed that got stepped on by the newer titles, but there was a fair bit of being that hood-donning whirlwind of death in those games too. Assassin's Creed 2, Brotherhood and Black Flag, each some of the best in the franchise, each lauded the absolute brutality of their action combat as key selling points. Move too far away from that to underpower the player and you get... well, fittingly enough you get Assassin's Creed Unity and it's slow and frankly annoying combat.

But there is a charm in going 'back to basics'. No more discount 'Nemesis system', no more painful 'over arching' metagame that forces you to relieve the same endless 'do this task' over and over and pretends it's content. Just back to the focused high quality main campaign will small chunks of content... spread over a world of mindless collectathon items- look, the Ubisoft Formula had its roots for a while. If they want to make an Assassin's Creed to break the mould, going 'back to basics' is only the beginning. They need to evolve, take risks, be different to the games before it; and maybe spend a little more time planning what they're going to make before they just jump into development and allow the muscle memory of ten years to kick in like they have always done up until now. I know that's currently impossible with the sheer rate of output that the Ubisoft machine demands out of them, but maybe that's evidence that Assassin's Creed needs to tone down that ungodly churn!

So what lessons can this bold new face of Assassin's Creed learn and where can they learn them? Well there's some fundamental theories of basic world building that Breath of the Wild is a masterclass on, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima and any action game of that calibre can teach them how to make action fun and stealth? Well if they want to get creative with and add that dose of approachable ingenuity they've been desperate to nail since the whole 'black box mission design' disappointment of Unity; 'Hitman: No Subtitle' or Metal Gear Solid V. Both different styles of game but with an incredible amount of replayability in the way they designed fundamental systems that interacted with each other in a way that designed gameplay opportunities rather than orchestrating highly scripted sections of gameplay with specifically designed alternative routes. None of these inspirations and ideas are easy, and absolutely none of them can be replicated in the same timeframe that Assassin's Creed games are usually developed in; which is why a change needs to come.

Is there hope for Assassin's Creed in the coming future? Or is this all just another waste of time where people get their hopes up for a Ubisoft that plays like they're going to listen before letting us all down for the hundredth time? Well, I'm not confident. I've said it before and I'll say it till I'm blue in the face; there's something rotten at the top of Ubisoft and that withers each and every one of their fruits before they can reach the store shelves. All the talk about 'accountability' and 'fixing themselves up' has been idle pandering; they've let the world and themselves down consistently. Giving them the benefit of the doubt at this point would literally be like laying your whole body down in front of a serial killer elephant; not a wise move.

Ubisoft absolutely will screw up the basic narrative, making all the characters surface deep and quirky so they can stuff as many faces in the plot as they possibly can. They will find some way to monetise the game in the most infuriating way; pawning cosmetics under the vain belief that just because they're no gameplay effecting, that makes them harmless, disregarding how that excuse only works in free-to-play online games; in a single purchase single player game we except the good stuff in the thing we bought! They will fail to strike a balance that keeps the gameplay loop feeling fresh and end up egging the player on for so long they lose interest, making the final ten hours, and the proceeding DLC, a soul-sucking chore to go through. And they will disappoint in their core promise to reignite what made Assassin's Creed promising. Because falling short is just what Ubisoft does best.

The problem with this franchise is, contrary to Yves insistances, Assassin's Creed never had a plan for where its franchise would go, and when you're developing a connected narrative mega universe, winging it as you go is kind of a fool's game. They had no spine or soul to limit their ambition, which in turn would allow that ambition to be fine tuned into what makes the series work best, and so Assassin's Creed just became another mis-match of ideas that the current development team thinks might workfor the moment, and it kind of does for a bit before it gets boring because at this point the fans don't even know what they want out of these games. The identity is just so damned muddy that fan's own desires are a mystery to them. Mirage has some big shoes to fill if it's going to magic us all back to caring about this franchise and personally, I'm pretty confidant it's going to fail.